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Sorting by Multiple Columns

 
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# 1  
Old 05-18-2012
Sorting by Multiple Columns
Hi

I have a text file that has four columns (Logonid,First Name,Last Name,Status)

Code:
Logonid    First Name   Last Name  Status
abc2        Fred           Mercury     Inactive
abc1        John           Deacon      Active
abc3        Roger         Taylor        Active
abc4        Brian          May           Inactive

In the above scenario I would want the following order (ie sorted alphabetically on 1st and 4th columns)...

Code:
Logonid    First Name   Last Name  Status
abc1        John           Deacon      Active
 abc3        Roger         Taylor        Active
abc2        Fred           Mercury     Inactive
 abc4        Brian          May           Inactive

I am trying to use the following (which is not working!)..

Code:
cat inputfile.csv | sort -t',' -k1 -k4  >> outputfile-$var_date.csv

Any help always appreciated.
Last edited by radoulov; 05-18-2012 at 06:40 AM.. Reason: Additional code tags.
# 2  
Old 05-18-2012
You sort command should work fine outside the fact it tells to use a colon as field separator while the file you are showing isn't using them but spaces.
# 3  
Old 05-18-2012
I think you need to re-read the sort man page; you've got the idea but are confused. Here's how I'd do it:
Code:
head -1 $input > $output
tail -n +2 $input | sort -k 4,4 -k 1,1 >>$output

If "tail -n +2" returns an error, use sed:
Code:
sed -n '2,$p' $input | ...

The order you specify the -k sort keys options dictates the precedence of the sorting. In this case you wanted the 4th field sorted and THEN the 1st field.
Last edited by otheus; 05-18-2012 at 07:20 AM.. Reason: fixed sort order.
 
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